Thursday, May 10, 2012

Home Sweet Homegrown (+ Giveaway!!!)

The time of gardening is upon us friends! From spring weather-loving crops to those heat-cravings vegetables of summer, the days of seeds and soil and planting and gathering are here. Hubs and Huxley and I have been out in our garden every day, mucking around, getting dirty, and loving it all!

While I've been gardening for some time, there's always so much more to learn. The gardening and growing learning curve is so very steep, and long, it seems, perhaps owing to the variability of successful techniques from region to region, climate to climate, and even one growing season to the next. Adaptability and an "oh, well!" disposition are essentials in gardening, just as much as good gloves, compost, and a trusty trowel, I've decided!

To help me, though, and you, too, thankfully we've got Robyn Jasko. Introduced to me via my buddy Jodi (proprietress extraordinaire of Asheville's beloved Short Street Cakes), Robyn has just published a lovely little book on how to grow, and grow well. Home Sweet Homegrown takes your hand and lovingly walks you through the entire growing spectrum, from seed-starting to sowing to harvesting all the way up through cooking and even preserving what you've grown. It's compact enough to fit in your the back pocket of your gardening jeans, but dense enough to become a go-to source time and time again.

Robyn and her publisher, Microcosm Publishing, have generously offered two small measure readers copies of her book, along with the 5-packet seed kit pictured above. How cool is that?! All that's needed to enter the giveaway is a comment saying what you're looking forward to growing. For me, it's pumpkins. I have 6 varieties started and I can't wait to bake, carve and decorate with them come Autumn. YES!

I'll run the giveaway through next Wednesday, May 16th, midnight EST. In your comment, please leave a means of reaching you should you be the winner(s), via a link back to your blog or website or by leaving your email address in your comment (don't forget this essential step, folks! I've had far too many numbers selected by the Random Widget only to find there's no way whatsoever of reaching the commenter!).

Even if you don't win, do check out Robyn's book and her website, growindie.com. This lady knows what she's doing and has got an enormous amount of seasoned gardening wisdom at her (dirty!) fingertips! Thank you, Robyn, and thank you Microcosm!

127 comments:

Here in Rome backyards are a rare luxury so, after years of daydreaming about getting my hands dirty, I'm finally starting my very own rooftop terrace mini-garden. I hope to grow my very own fresh herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, lemons and strawberries. Happy gardening!

I'm growing a slew of things this year but I'm most excited about the kaleidoscope carrot mix. I tend to grow things I can't find at our fantastic farmer's market, so that often means raising the brightest, oddest varieties of things!

I've got my herbs and tomatoes but I want to grow beans and squash this year and I get confused with all the varieties. I need to know what will work where I live and want to grow to can and eat all winter. My newest adventure this year was an Orange Fizz Geranium. It smells wonderful and I was told I could bake with it.jnnfr_brwr@hotmail.comJennifer Brewer

This year is a big year for us and we are growing more than we ever have. I also have pumpkins growing, for the first time mind you. :)Sweet potatoes are in the ground also, another first time crop. Thanks for the chance to win such a great prize!

I'm looking forward to growing garden huckleberries this summer. They're not true huckleberries, but some strange solanaceous plant that you can prepare like real huckleberries (with the aid of lots of sugar)!

That lasagna gardening looks interesting! So far I've got beets and peas in the ground with tomatoes soon following, but I'm such a hesitant gardener and would love to read this book in hopes of becoming knowledgeable and confident of my green thumb!

This year my husband has done all the work...just a week or two out and our sugar snaps are already looking REALLY good. Those are my favorite out of the whole season, so I'm eagerly awaiting them!Sarah Msslamast@gmail.com

This year I'm looking forward to the challenge of gardening in northern NY. Planting commences next week with my friend who has so kindly offered to share her garden space with us as we have just a lake for our backyard.

Everything! The most exciting is the tomatoes I've started from seed. I've never been successful starting my own transplants, but this year it looks like it might be a go. This book looks awesome. Even if I don't win, it's definitely near the top of my wish list.krisnusskern at gmail dot com

Hmm...it appears that I will be growing weeds at the rate I'm going...not good. I hope my tomatoes are a success, but this is my first year gardening, so we'll see. I'm thinking that book would be a godsend.

I can't wait for my heirloom alpine strawberries to ripen! I grew them from seed last spring and that was no easy feat! Hopefully they will make a nice little batch of homemade strawberry lemonbalm jam, sweetened with backyard honey.

i'm looking forward to a few different heirloom tomatoes- i scored a bunch of heirloom uglies last summer at the farmer's market and made the. best. sauce. ever. so this summer i hope to recreate it with my own tomatoes :)

I could really use a book like this! Last year I just planted some things I eat a lot, like tomatoes and bell peppers, but we have bad soil and little sun and eventually the cold winter got the best of them. This year I'm looking forward to lettuce and arugula, they should do better and tasty nonetheless!

This year we are growing strawberries in our new raised bed! We love strawberries. My real babies are the heirloom tomatoes that I have grown from seed obtained through Sow True Seed, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine and Amish paste. I am so excited. I have babied these plants for months now and can't wait to taste the fruit!! whitson8751@att.net

This is the first year I'm growing tomatoes and tomatillos from seed (I've always just bought the transplants at the local nursery). I'm especially excited about growing my own San Marzano paste tomatoes!

After just moving to this new place in August, I have been busy trying to craft a garden from a lawn so that we can have some harvest this summer and fall -- I already have enjoyed lettuce, chard and kale -- but I am most excited about growing potatoes for the first time ever! Now if I can just keep the beetles away! :o)

SUNFLOWERS! We have a huge vegetable garden, and there are always some sunflowers in there. But this year, I am claiming my own little sunflower patch outside of the garden. Can't wait.kopetan at frontiernet.net

I'm just looking to have a successful year with enough tomatoes to can, a few more than the two or three small peppers I usually get, and maybe some cukes and zucchini (which most people get a-plenty, but I seem to have a hard time with). I love getting home from work, walking out to the garden and seeing what's for dinner that night.

I tried not to have a garden this year. I tried and I failed. We are moving a year from now and I just want to concentrate on getting ready for that and not spend endless hours in the garden. I just couldn't do it. My front yard has somehow sprouted pots and more pots and earthboxes and repurposed shipping crates and even, gulp, the dogs' swimming pool (So! They ate my potato pot!)full of growing green things. I am most looking forward to seeing how potatoes grow in a kiddie (doggie) pool.

i'm looking forward to growing heirloom tomatoes. i have about 11 different variety planted. i also planted purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple kale and purple asparagus this year...so i'm excited to see how purple they actually are! enchantedtree(at)hotmail.com

I would love to win this book and give it to my daughter whose birthday was this week. She is now happily ensconced in West Asheville and laying the groundwork for her very first all-her-own garden. She also begins her very first full-time job on Monday, AND her horse arrives that day as well all the way from his current home in southern Maryland. Now I KNOW I'll never get her to move home...:-}

I am looking forward to growing tomatoes and chilies! :D and some beans! I love to see how the grow tall and beautiful while fixing nitrogen in the soil for other plants to enjoy. I am so happy summer is coming!

I'm looking forward to my purple tomatillos! The seedlings look healthy and they will go in the ground this week. I haven't grown this variety before but I just love the way tomatillos grow on a vine with the little delicate paper husk. It is beautiful!

oh my goodness - after reading the comments, i may need to try my hand at watermelons! i hadn't even thought about it and my kids eat them like mad. it is our first year attempting to grow anything at all, so i am starting with herbs in containers. LOTS of basil - my favorite. (hilarymk@yahoo.com)

My one and only Selke heirloom tomato plant. We are preparing to move and so I couldn't get a garden going this year, but I couldn't resist growing one thing! So a Selke it is (sweet, juicy, fat-ish cherry tomatoes). It's in a big pot, ready to get hauled when we go.

Oh, that book looks amazing!! I am looking forward to growing cucumbers.. I want to pickle them this year! I always put extra cukes in a basket on the front walk for all the neighbors and passer by in Historic Harpers Feryy to partake. It is awesome to give to others that can't grow veges! hippycas@yahoo.com

About Me

Making an attempt to craft a good life with my husband and young son in a small mountain community. I find pleasure in the light at dusk, atlases, hard cider, cat antics, dog breath, baby giggles, homemade ice cream and snorty laughter.
Author of the "Homemade Living" book series (Lark Books) which showcases topics related to small-scale homesteading and some of the diverse ways people are reconnecting with their food and food communities and taking up sustainable food practices.
I also host a bi-monthly column every Friday on Design*Sponge:http://www.designspongeonline.com/category/small-measures.
E-mail me directly at: ashleyadamsenglish(at)gmail.com.

The Best LIttle Chicken Coop in Candler

"The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences."-Michael Pollan